Geographical Setting and Extent of Telangana

Locating a State means placing it inside larger and larger frames, from the country down to the region. Read the frames below from the largest to the smallest.

• Telangana is a State in the south-central part of peninsular India.
• It lies on the Deccan Plateau, the broad southern part of the Peninsular Plateau (Section 1.7).
• Its capital is Hyderabad, which lies in the south-western half of the State.
• Telangana came into being on 2 June 2014, when the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014 divided the earlier State of Andhra Pradesh.
• The State is landlocked: it has no coastline, and its nearest sea, the Bay of Bengal, lies to the east beyond Andhra Pradesh.

Notice that Telangana lies wholly south of the Tropic of Cancer and wholly west of the 82°30′ E meridian, and that it does not touch the sea.

Source: Survey of India State boundaries, compiled by the Datameet community (indianopenmaps); Lambert conformal projection. Reference year of boundaries: current (post-2014) State map.

• Telangana lies wholly south of the Tropic of Cancer (23°26′ N), so the whole State is in the tropical latitudes.
• It lies wholly west of 82°30′ E, the meridian used for Indian Standard Time (IST), so local sun time in Telangana runs slightly behind IST.
• Four States surround Telangana (details in Section 1.5):
  • Maharashtra to the north and north-west.
  • Chhattisgarh to the north-east.
  • Andhra Pradesh to the east, south-east and south.
  • Karnataka to the west and south-west.

• Hyderabad State was a princely State ruled by the Nizams; official records also called it the Nizam's Dominions.
• It covered much of the central Deccan, across the upper Godavari, Manjira, Bhima and Krishna valleys.
• Its capital was the city of Hyderabad, which is also the capital of present Telangana.

Area and Location

• The State reached farther west than present Telangana, into the upper Godavari and Bhima valleys now in Maharashtra and Karnataka.
• In 1951 it had a population of 1,86,55,108 and 16 districts (Census of India 1951).

Three Language Regions

Hyderabad State was not one language region. Its districts fell into three groups, which decided how the State was divided in 1956.

• Khammam district did not yet exist in 1951: it was formed on 1 October 1953 from five taluks of Warangal district.
• In 1941 the State had four divisions (subahs), Medak, Warangal, Aurangabad and Gulbarga, and 17 districts, including Atraf-i-Balda, the district around Hyderabad city.
• Around 1909–1941 its neighbours were Berar and the Central Provinces to the north and north-east, the Bombay Presidency to the west, and the Madras Presidency to the south and east.

Hyderabad State and Present Telangana Compared

Only the changes that moved boundaries or created a new territorial unit are listed. Each entry says how the geographical unit changed.

How Hyderabad State Was Divided in 1956

• The appointed day of the Act was 1 November 1956; on that day Hyderabad State ceased to exist.
• The Telangana areas then formed the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh until 2014.

Boundary Changes Around 2014

• The Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014 (Act 6 of 2014) formed Telangana from the Adilabad, Karimnagar, Medak, Nizamabad, Warangal, Ranga Reddy, Nalgonda, Mahbubnagar, Khammam and Hyderabad districts.
• Before 1959 the whole Bhadrachalam revenue division belonged to East Godavari district; it was then moved to Khammam district for administrative reasons.
• An amendment (ordinance of 29 May 2014, replaced by Act 19 of 2014) left seven mandals of Khammam district in Andhra Pradesh:
  • Five whole mandals: Kukunoor, Velairpadu, Chintoor, Kunavaram and Vararamachandrapuram.
  • Two mandals in part: Bhurgampadu and Bhadrachalam; twelve Bhurgampadu villages and the Bhadrachalam revenue village stayed in Telangana.
• The stated purpose was to ease the rehabilitation and resettlement work of the Polavaram irrigation project on the Godavari.

Notice that the State spans a little over 4° of latitude and a little over 4° of longitude, and that each extreme point lies in a different border district.

Source: Extent lines: Telangana Socio Economic Outlook 2024. Extreme points and their districts computed from the Survey of India State boundary and Local Government Directory districts (2019 framework), UTM zone 44N. Boundary status: current State boundary.

Latitude, Longitude and Shape

• The State spans about 4°05′ of latitude (15°50′ to 19°55′ N) and about 4°05′ of longitude (77°14′ to 81°19′ E).
• The northernmost point is in Adilabad district and the southernmost in Jogulamba Gadwal district.²2Computed for this chapter from the Survey of India State boundary, Local Government Directory districts (2019 framework) and India-WRIS layers, in a projected coordinate system; values are approximate and rounded.
• The easternmost point is in Bhadradri Kothagudem district and the westernmost in Narayanpet district.
• The State is compact: roughly as wide from east to west as it is long from north to south, with a bulge to the east in Khammam and Bhadradri Kothagudem districts.

Area: One Figure, Several Versions

• The current official area is 1,12,077 sq km, used by the Government of Telangana's State Profile and the Socio Economic Outlook 2024.
• Some earlier official publications printed other figures, for example 1,14,840 sq km in the Socio Economic Outlook 2015.³3Socio Economic Outlook 2015 printed 1,14,840 sq km; the State Profile on telangana.gov.in and the Socio Economic Outlook 2024 give 1,12,077 sq km. An older Central Ground Water Board profile gives 1,15,150 sq km.
• An area measured from the Survey of India boundary in an equal-area projection comes to about 1,12,100 sq km, which agrees with the current figure.

A Landlocked State

• A landlocked region has no coastline; Telangana's nearest coast is in Andhra Pradesh.
• Telangana's sea trade therefore has to pass through ports in neighbouring coastal States.
• Its rivers, the Godavari and Krishna, flow out of the State into Andhra Pradesh before reaching the Bay of Bengal.

Notice that Andhra Pradesh wraps round Telangana's east and south, while Odisha lies close to the north-east but does not touch it.

Source: Boundaries: Survey of India State boundaries and Local Government Directory districts (2019 framework), compiled by the Datameet community (indianopenmaps). Reference year: current State boundaries. Boundary status: State boundaries as published by the Survey of India.

• The boundary with Andhra Pradesh is the longest, about 930 km, followed by Maharashtra (about 820 km), Karnataka (about 560 km) and Chhattisgarh (about 210 km).²
• Jogulamba Gadwal borders both Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, and Kamareddy borders both Maharashtra and Karnataka.
• In the north-east, Jayashankar Bhupalapally and Bhadradri Kothagudem each touch two neighbouring States.
• Odisha is not a neighbour: at its closest it lies about 30 km beyond Telangana's north-eastern tip.²

For administration, the State is divided into districts, each district into revenue divisions, and each division into revenue mandals.

From 10 Districts to 33

• On 11 October 2016, 21 new districts were created; the State Government also created new revenue divisions and mandals at the same time.
• On 17 February 2019, Mulugu was carved out of Jayashankar Bhupalapally and Narayanpet out of Mahabubnagar.
• In 2021, Warangal Urban district was renamed Hanumakonda and Warangal Rural was renamed Warangal; the total stayed 33.
• Districts, divisions and mandals are formed or altered by notification under the Telangana Districts (Formation) Act, 1974.

Notice how small Hyderabad district (4) is, and that it is enclosed by Ranga Reddy (26) and Medchal Malkajgiri (17).

Source: Local Government Directory districts, 2019 framework (33 districts), compiled by the Datameet community (indianopenmaps); State boundary: Survey of India. Boundary status: current district boundaries; not valid for years before 17 February 2019.

District Boundaries Change: Use Data With Care

Which Hyderabad

• The Peninsular Plateau is one of the oldest and most stable landmasses of India, built mainly of very ancient gneisses and granites (NCERT).
• The Deccan Plateau is its large southern part, bordered by the Western Ghats to the west, the Eastern Ghats to the east, and the Satpura, Maikal and Mahadeo hills to the north.
• Telangana lies in the eastern part of the Deccan Plateau, between the Western Ghats and the low, broken Eastern Ghats.
• The plateau's general elevation falls from west to east, which is why its major rivers flow eastward to the Bay of Bengal.

Why Telangana Is a Plateau State

• The Central Ground Water Board states that nearly 80 percent of Telangana is underlain by hard rock formations such as granites and gneisses.⁶6Central Ground Water Board, Ground Water Profile of Telangana State (cgwb.gov.in).
• Geography texts call the part of the Deccan in this area the Telangana Plateau; it is a physical region, not a legal unit, and its edges do not follow the State line.
• Detailed relief, with its hills, plateaus and valleys, is taught in Chapter 2; rocks and minerals come in later chapters.

Telangana in Two River Basins

Notice that the basin divide cuts across the State from west to east, a little north of Hyderabad, and that both rivers leave the State before reaching the sea.

Source: Basins and rivers: India-WRIS (Central Water Commission and ISRO); State boundary: Survey of India; compiled by the Datameet community (indianopenmaps). Reference: current State boundary.

• The Godavari basin covers roughly the northern half of the State and the Krishna basin roughly the southern half.
• Both rivers rise far to the west, cross the plateau eastward, and reach the Bay of Bengal through Andhra Pradesh.

• The divide between the two basins follows higher ground, so it does not match any district or State line (Figure 1.8).

This section gives only the bird's-eye view. Each element is explained in the chapter shown beside it.

• National Highway 44 (north to south) and National Highway 65 (west to east) both pass through Hyderabad, linking the State with the rest of India.
• Secunderabad, Hyderabad's twin city, is the headquarters of the South Central Railway zone of Indian Railways.

Use the numbered map first without looking at the answers. Then check yourself against the answer table.

Notice that the four extreme points (8 to 11) sit on the State boundary, each in a different border district.

Source: Boundaries: Survey of India State boundaries and Local Government Directory districts (2019 framework), compiled by the Datameet community (indianopenmaps); rivers: India-WRIS. Reference: current State boundary; districts in the 2019 framework.

A. Basic location

1. Name the neighbouring States numbered 1, 2, 3 and 4, and give the direction of each from Telangana.
2. Identify point 5, the State capital.
3. Using the north arrow, say which side of Telangana faces the Bay of Bengal.

B. Broad physical context

1. Name the rivers marked 6 and 7, and say which river basin covers the northern half and which the southern half of the State.
2. Shade the area of the Deccan Plateau on the map: does it stop at the State boundary?

C. Administrative orientation

1. Name the districts that contain the extreme points 8, 9, 10 and 11.
2. On Figure 1.7, find Hyderabad (4), Ranga Reddy (26) and Medchal Malkajgiri (17), and describe their positions relative to each other.
3. On Figure 1.7, list the three districts that touch Chhattisgarh.

D. Historical comparison

1. Using Table 1.2, compare the latitude and longitude limits of Hyderabad State and present Telangana: in which direction did the old State extend farther?

Revise right after first reading, again the next day, after about a week and after about a month, each time redrawing the neighbours map from memory.

Notice that Telangana touches four States and no sea.

Source: Boundaries: Survey of India State boundaries and Local Government Directory districts (2019 framework), compiled by the Datameet community (indianopenmaps). Reference: current State boundaries.

Notes

1. 1Imperial Gazetteer of India, Provincial Series: Hyderabad State (1909); Census of India 1941, Vol. XXI, Part I, p. 1. The Census of 1951, Vol. IX, Part II-A, Table A-I gives 82,168 square miles; the sq km figures are conversions.
2. 2Computed for this chapter from the Survey of India State boundary, Local Government Directory districts (2019 framework) and India-WRIS layers, in a projected coordinate system; values are approximate and rounded.
3. 3Socio Economic Outlook 2015 printed 1,14,840 sq km; the State Profile on telangana.gov.in and the Socio Economic Outlook 2024 give 1,12,077 sq km. An older Central Ground Water Board profile gives 1,15,150 sq km.
4. 4Government of Telangana, State Profile (page updated December 2025) gives 612 revenue mandals; the Socio Economic Outlook 2024 gives 620 mandals. New mandals were notified in 2022–2024, so counts depend on the date and source.
5. 5The Registrar General of India asked States not to change district, sub-district or tehsil boundaries between 1 January 2026 and 31 March 2027, for Census 2027 (reported by Business Standard, 29 June 2025); Telangana Today, 6 April 2026, reported the commission deferred till after that date.
6. 6Central Ground Water Board, Ground Water Profile of Telangana State (cgwb.gov.in).